Curious Facts in the History of Insects; Including Spiders and Scorpions.: A Complete Collection of the Legends, Superstitions, Beliefs, and Ominous Signs Connected with Insects; Together with Their Uses in Medicine, Art, and as Food; and a Summary of Their Remarkable Injuries and Appearances.Cowan, Frank
History
Curious Facts in the History of Insects; Including Spiders and Scorpions.: A Complete Collection of the Legends, Superstitions, Beliefs, and Ominous Signs Connected with Insects; Together with Their Uses in Medicine, Art, and as Food; and a Summary of Their Remarkable Injuries and Appearances.
Cowan, Frank
Insects
In the cabinet of Montfaucon, there is a Scarabæus in the middle of a
large stone, with outspread feet; and two men, or women, who are perhaps
priests, or priestesses, stand before it with clasped hands as if in
adoration.[88] This gentleman also has remarked that on the Isiac table,
there is the figure of a man in a sitting posture, who holds his hands
toward a beetle which has the head of a man with a crescent upon it.[89]
On this table there is another Scarab with the head of Isis.[90] Besides
these Scarabæi with the heads of hawks, rams, men, and the goddess Isis,
Mr. Hertz has in his possession a small Scarabæus in stone with the
head of a cow.[91]
The mode of representing the Scarabæi on the monuments was frequently
very arbitrary. Some are figured with, and some without the scutellum;
and others are sometimes introduced with two scutella, one on either
clypeus. An instance of this mode of representation, of which no example
is to be found in nature, occurs in a large Scarabæus in the British
museum.[92]
Among the ideographics of the hieroglyphic writing, the Scarabæus is
found under several forms: seated with closed and spread wings upon the
head of a god, it signifies the name of a god--a Creator;[93] and with
the head and legs of a man, it is emblematic of the same creative power,
or of Pthah. Another emblem of Pthah is supported by the arms of a man
kneeling on the heavens, and surmounted by a winged Scarab supporting a
globe or sun.[94]
The Scarabæus likewise belongs to the hieroglyphic signs as a syllabic
phonetic; and with complement a mouth, signifies type, form, and
transformation: flying, to mount--a phonetic of the later alphabet, with
sound of H in the name of Pthah. Another phonetic of the later alphabet,
belonging to the XXVI. dynasty, of the time of Domitianus and Trajanus,
was a Scarabæus in repose.[95]
The Scarabæus entered also into the royal scutcheons. It first appeared
in the XI. dynasty, and is found afterward in the XII., XIII., XIV.,
XVIII., XIX., XX., XXI., XXII., XXIII., and XXX.[96]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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